


Addiction

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Drama, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-25
Updated: 2006-05-25
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:20:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Three men, three addictions, and how they all intertwine. Not pretty. Sirius, Remus, Severus, and their various permutations as their lives continue.





	Addiction

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

**I. Sirius**

"You holding out on me, Pads?"

James was joking, but he didn't really know what he was asking.

"Hardly. Bottle's right there. Get your own." Sirius jerked a thumb toward the contraband firewhiskey, recently filched from the unsuspecting owners of The Hog's Head.

James shrugged his shoulders. "I'll save my poison for later." He rifled his hand through his unkempt hair. "You okay, Sirius?"

"Yes. Of course. Brilliant, as always."

James looked askance at him. "Fine. But you don't have to be miserable forever, y'know. Remus will forgive you. He has to. We're-"

"No. He doesn't have to. I'm studying, do you mind?" Sirius glared across the room at his best friend.

James made a snort that sounded a lot like 'wanker,' and turned on his side.

What James didn't know was what else was in the small amount of alcohol, surreptitiously added when James was using the toilet. Sirius had allowed the shredded slivers of his pride be pulverized, strained, or otherwise distilled into a potion created by his most despised enemy. And now he was drinking it. Didn't know what's in it, wasn't half sure - and half hoping - that Snivellus really will kill him, as he sneeringly suggested he could. But Sirius couldn't take it anymore.

He was a fucking idiot, his own anger having strung him up by the balls after the shockingly few seconds of satisfaction of having scared Snape shitless. Now he would pay for it, seemingly forever. Remus had finally begun speaking to him, but his former packmate was so impersonal that Sirius felt as far away as the furthest, most miserable planet in some distant constellation. It gnawed at him. He wanted to turn into Padfoot, to sit and whine and follow Remus around until he could no longer be ignored. And he knew it wouldn't happen.

So he asked Snape to deaden him. Snape laughed at the offer of money, insisting he didn't need it, that the fact that he was being begged by the high and mighty Sirius Black for something to make him not want to feel meant far more than anything else he could offer.

Because Snape could kill him, and given what had happened, he just might. He knew Snape was too clever to risk it, but even if he did, he was also too clever to be caught.

Sirius didn't care. Every resolute pulse throbbed with loss and abandon and he had only recently realized that he had never felt better than when Remus's teeth bit into his shoulder, sucking and marking as they wrestled, naked, reveling in the pleasure of lust and the hunger and being together…

Whatever Snape had made, the potency was remarkable. Sirius was able to be civil, even chummy with Remus. He didn't feel a thing. Every rough comment glazed off of him like water on glass, at least for a little while. The irony that Snape could create something that Sirius actually wanted, needed, clung to, even ceased to bother him. He and Remus finally reconciled, but it had been long enough that Sirius had managed to coddle Snape's ego enough to figure out most of the ingredients in what he had been making.

After the first night in their London flat, months later, when Remus lay panting at his side, licking over the bite marks on Sirius's neck, his Remuspeak for 'I love you,' Sirius promised himself he would never again need such a substance, that he would never again not face the pain of living, of pulsing life.

And he knew, within the marrow of his bones, that he lied.

 

*****

 

It was the worst part of the War. Remus had been gone for weeks, their parting ambivalent at best, and Sirius was careening down a well-trodden path of self-destructive habits. He didn't have to check on Pettigrew for a good couple of hours yet- Remus wasn't there to give him his combination withering/mournful look that he received when Remus caught him with the potion, since he had perfected it during his dark days. And so he reverently poured some into a small tumbler, swirled it around with a mockery of absentRemus, his beloved scotch, drank it, and dozed.

 

***

 

Waking up from his fog, he looked at the clock and swore at the time. After racing from Wormtail's to James's; far, far, astoundingly Sirius-fucked-up-yet-again far too late, he saw the carnage, witnessed his betrayal, and surrendered.

After a few years in Azkaban, those memories, and how to make his fix, were the only possessors of his sanity.

 

~~~~~~~

 

**II. Remus**

 

He'd been living a Muggle life for several years before discovering that they had their own magical ways to make things easier. Remus continued to resist for a while, convincing himself that years of forced disguise, of necessary distance from others made him somehow more impervious, that he was doing just fine, that…

…it was only a matter of time. Though his coworkers at the library in Halifax were fairly staid, he ventured out into slightly rougher- more colorful, he told them- enclaves. Alone. Even in Muggle Canada, there were places a gay man could prowl, fondle, and decide who to fuck. This became especially important the night before the full moon. Especially after he had indulged in his opium. He should have spent money on books, on less-shabby clothes, on anything else. Instead, he numbed himself with the substance that allowed him to feel good about being in his mutilated skin, and with fucking. Remus introduced himself to a new ass every moon, a bowl-full of ego every time the orb that ruled his life blossomed to her full, nightmarish hold. There wasn't affection in what he did, that had been for Sirius alone. Other men thought his scars were sexy, that he had an aura of controlled danger.

They weren't wrong.

It was ironic, as Remus would chastise himself in his inner monologue, days later, that for someone who had been so self-conscious about his body in his youth, its ugliness and all that the ever-increasing scars entailed, would now, as an adult, be so brazen about showing it off. He felt it all through a haze, one that didn't have room for being betrayed by his lover, no space for prejudice (since werewolves didn't exist in the Muggle world, now did they?); nothing except the reassuring textures under his fingers of old, bound books and nubile, taut skin.

 

*******

He could have sworn that he'd cast his smell-blocking Imperturbable on the door to his office, and he knew bloody well that he'd locked it. Yet Snape was standing there, smoking chalice in hand. Silent. One raised eyebrow, one downturned mouth. His usual expression, with a twist.

"How did you get in here, Severus?" The drug made him more mellow, and he'd been at it a while. For some reason this moon cycle was especially wearing, and for the first time in a couple of years, he had indulged in what had been a habit in his former life. Snape's first name had tripped off his tongue, which was odd.

No reply. Snape continued to stare, looking at the pipe, at Remus lounging on a couch in his mostly-open bathrobe, feet propped up at the other end. They took their time looking each other over, having come to an unspoken truce in the months while Remus was teaching at Hogwarts. And Remus was pretty sure that Snape the man had the same inclinations that he had smelled on him as Snape the student, though back then sniffing the Slytherin had been an accident. He wanted to be sure this time, so he took in a deep breath, registering _curiosity/lust/fear._

It was something to work with.

He unfurled from the couch and stood near Snape, offering the pipe to him. Snape shook his head, but didn't move away, he merely placed the chalice on the nearby desk. Remus leaned in, carefully reading the slightest emotion on Snape's face. The dark eyes were less guarded. _He's probably had a bit of a wind-me-down himself,_ Remus realized. He'd been in Snape's office a few times, had been offered some potent sociable brandy and seen an impressive collection of glass decanters. This was probably as forward as he would ever get from someone so reserved. And Remus suspected that Snape was as deprived of physical touch as he was, though he would probably never admit it. That was okay.

"I'll just get you out of these bothersome robes, shall I?" he asked.

"Yes," Snape answered, roughly, then pulled a small vial of something out of his black trouser pocket. "But use this, nothing else." He handed it to Remus, who turned it in his hand, admiring the phosphorescent twinklings in the lubricant. "And no kissing, for Merlin's sake. I'm not here for anything sentimental."

"All right." Remus tilted his head, gauging Snape's request. "Are you here for fucking, then?"

A nod.

All in all, it was a very satisfying encounter. Apparently for both, as Snape came to his office the next three moons, placing both the wolfsbane and lubricant next to each other on Remus's desk. The fourth after his initial surprise visit, it was the chalice only.

Remus, already aroused in anticipation of his monthly, quiet shag, looked questioningly at Snape. "Tired of me so soon?" He stretched out on the couch, arching his long toes toward the imposing, black-clad figure.

Snape shook his head. "I've become used to it. Crave it, even," he said, glaring at Remus, as it was evidently his fault that Snape looked forward to being fucked senseless by Hogwarts's resident werewolf with no strings attached.

"So where's the problem?"

Snape stood imperiously, hands behind his back. It could almost be taken for submission, but Remus knew very well that Snape could have his wand snapped into his hand and at his throat in seconds. He waited for Snape's answer. And waited. Snape continued to look at him. Remus grew tired of it.

"Well, if there's nothing I can do to make you change your mind…" Voice and finger trailed downward as Remus opened his bathrobe and cradled his balls, interested in gauging the other man's response.

Snape's eye twitched. "I cannot give in to such needs simply because I-" he stopped.

Remus slowly pulled his fingers up his cock. "Because you what?" he asked, enjoying the discomfited look on Snape's face. _Bloody hell, the man was stubborn._

"Because I desire them." Snape's voice was gravel, ground out through gritted teeth. "That is precisely why this must stop." He turned on his heel, strode through the door and slammed it behind him.

Remus felt the shudder of wood into stone echo in his bones, rankling his nerves despite the drug. It wasn't that he particularly liked the other man, or desired anything beyond their monthly trysts. But sharing their bodies for mutual gratification, albeit wordlessly and perhaps with a sense of shared profound shame, had allowed Remus to feel as though a few of the jagged pieces of his life suddenly formed a delicate pattern- a glimpse in a kaleidoscope, aligning past and present.

The desire to fuck somebody, anybody, burned in him like a flare, then extinguished utterly. He ached under the weight of his impending transformation and gnawing sensation of missing-limb-Sirius. It would be a bad moon, and even Snape- isolated, unforgiving, temporarily surrendered Snape- had shut him out. Remus whimpered, his hand reaching for his opium pipe, willing enough magic to utter an _incendio_ so that the bowl glowed.

"You've infected me, Sirius," he whispered to the empty room before drawing a deep, burning breath of numbing heat.

 

~~~~~~~

 

**III. Severus**

 

Severus stormed down the staircases to the Dungeons, any staff or students in his path shunted aside in his Leviathan-equal wake. Two second years in his House suffered the misfortune of becoming unintentional flotsam, one eking out a question before the Potions Master cast back such an acerbic reply that even the foliage in a nearby portrait wilted. The Slytherins fled the corridor.

He could not have cared less.

"Fucking Order of Merlin. Denied. Blasted bloody hell, only have any use as a pawn…"

His one-person diatribe went on as he slammed the door shut to his office, then satisfyingly sent the door to his private quarters ricocheting into the doorframe, hearing the reverberating tremors even as he strode to his cabinet and with hands trembling in rage, liberated a decanter of scotch.

He willed his ire temporarily aside to carefully remove the stopper, then he poured a healthy splash, or tidal wave, more accurately, of the potent substance, regaining his composure as he did so.

"That should not have happened," he uttered to himself, he left hand fingers irritably clasping at the buttons on his robe. "Fucking Ministry. Fucking Dumbledore. Fucking two generations of Potters, and Black to make the nightmare complete. All I am is a body to be abused by the Dark Lord and Hogwarts since I'm obviously so fucking expendable. Severus," he spat. "Useful until proven dead. Hate them all."

He looked at the amber liquid and swirled it around twice, counterclockwise for good measure, before draining the glass. He grimaced, relishing the burn down his throat. He could create potions far more powerful than Scottish whiskey, but there was an unmagical element to Muggle distillation that captured his imagination.

Oh, bloody hell. There was no point in romanticizing it. He needed it, could almost hear its siren call, knew exactly how much he had of what kinds of alcohol and where the bottles were. Even when he didn't want it, he knew that he would pour some, that he would rationalize it because of the behavior of Potter/Lupin/Fudge/Voldemort/insert-hysterically-irritating-or-deadly-personage here, and he would continue on as though everything were perfectly fine. No one at the school would know, he made sure of that. One convenient attribute to being a double agent was his honed skills at secrecy, and he had them down to a fine art, not to mention breath-cleansing and sobering spells.

If only the liquor could make him forget his few encounters with Lupin.

Life, such as it was, proved to be far more tolerable with its razored edge blurred just a bit. But he despised it, despised himself. He was stronger than that, and yet, he wasn't. He poured another tumbler full, and allowed himself a rare gratuitous moment of righteous indignation. "Fuck you all, and your Order of Merlin too," he seethed before raising the glass and downing the contents.

Severus stretched out his arm and looked at his hand through a slightly buzzed haze, seeing the bony pale fingers clutching to the glass with a strength that had killed lesser men. Those fingers had grasped a wooden table when the Dark Mark had been burned into his skin, his freedom seared away, yet another chain that yanked him back, again and again. That hand had held his wand when he'd channeled his magic and uttered a variety of killing curses, seeing the souls of wizards escape as their corporeal bodies expired. Lupin had suckled those digits, had clasped his fingers to his furred chest, gently taken them behind his head and drawn him in so he could nuzzle Severus's neck, since Severus had specified that there was to be no kissing, no intimacy beyond actual carnal release…

The glass shattered, a combination of accidental wandless magic and Severus's now uncontrolled fury and loss. He watched his blood drip on the floor, making an intricate pattern with the glass shards and small stain of liquor.

He stared at the floor for a long time.

 

*******

 

Things were going poorly. Severus snorted derisively into his tumbler, wondering how he could even couch the fact that he was sure he would not survive the War and that the end was coming soon in such pedestrian terms within his own mind. A noise slowly roused him out of his morbid reverie. Knocking. Someone was knocking on his door. Well, he wasn't in. This knight in Death Eater armor being called by Voldemort almost weekly and then perfunctorily listened to by Dumbledore before being sent back out to teach Potions and ensure that the Boy Who Lived stayed that way wasn't in. Whoever it was could sod off.

It might be Malfoy, though, and he couldn't afford to lose faith with that one. He peeled himself up from his chair, put the glass on a nearby table, imposed his most Irritated Professor look on his face and strode to the door.

"Lupin?"

Fighting instinct, dulled thanks to the stunning amount of bourbon he'd consumed, he let the werewolf in. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at Wheezes?" In the four months since the fight at the Department of Mysteries and Black's death, Order meetings took place in the upstairs rooms at the Weasley twins' shop, much to Molly's despair. It didn't matter to Severus- one place was as ineffectual as another. But he didn't expect Lupin to be in his office at Hogwarts.

"I need something."

"Of course you do." Severus waved in the general direction of a high-backed chair. "I hardly assumed you were here on a social call."

"I can't stand it," Lupin sighed, looking as though he'd aged a decade since Black fell through the Veil. "A potion, Snape. Everything aches, and I know you can make something. You did for Sirius, years ago."

"Indeed. How ironic that now you're asking for the same thing."

"Look- I'm desperate. Will you make it or not?"

Severus considered the options. This situation was incredibly familiar, ringing with deja-vu, but perhaps it was merely that he had allowed this very scenario to run through his mind when he let down his guard. Alone.

"Yes," Severus said, drawing out the final 's' so that it hissed through his teeth. "But on one condition." He explained his terms to Lupin, who didn't look nearly as repulsed as he expected. In fact, he didn't even appear surprised. At the final element, Lupin balked.

"Why?" he asked. "Before you didn't-"

"Those are my terms," Severus interrupted icily. "And you do know that it's addictive, right? Even in school Black was practically begging to learn to make it himself."

"He did learn," Lupin shot back. "I hated him for it." He sagged into the chair. "And then I discovered that I was just as weak."

Severus walked over and, surprising himself, ran his fingers through Lupin's greying hair, from temple to neck. "Everyone is addicted to something. I'm sure death will cure it, though."

He retrieved the few volatile but common ingredients, walked over to his cauldron, and began preparing the potion in silence. He heard Lupin get up, pour himself a drink, then he brought one to Severus. There had been a time when Severus would never have allowed himself to touch any of the sacred tools and substances in his laboratory when not perfectly sober. That time, that control, was long lost to him, the cloaked self-destructive spiral starting in earnest after the bloody incident with Potter and the Pensieve. Severus raised the glass in mock toast to Lupin, who regarded him with an expression that disturbingly resembled pity.

After he set the hourglass near the simmering cauldron, he gave Lupin a pointed look. The other man nodded, and he took Severus in his arms. Per Severus's specifications, this was unlike their prior encounters from two years ago; Severus wanted to explore every inch of Lupin, with teeth and tongue, biting, licking, possessing. His pride had been leached from him, beaten away in interrogations and bitter circumstance. Now he clung to the smug knowledge that soon it would be over.

They were lying on Severus's bed, sated, when the chime came from the next room. Both men got up and dressed themselves, Severus not looking at Lupin. He walked purposefully to the cauldron, incanted a short spell above it while stirring a deliberate figure-eight four times exactly. He heard Lupin come in and stand behind him, Lupin's heated breath on his neck. It was maddeningly intimate.

"You've completed your part of the bargain," Severus growled, scooting away. "Don't feel that you owe me anything above and beyond that."

Lupin let out a deep sigh.

Severus ignored it as he got a large beaker and poured the potion into it. "This will last you for quite a while. And it should be mixed with something."

He held it out and Lupin took it, then placed it on the counter. "Thank you, Severus," he said, looking as wretched as Severus felt, despite the really good fuck.

Severus grunted in reply, then went and sat down in his chair by the fire, book and bottle at the ready. "Just do the final thing as you promised, then go."

Lupin shook his head. "Are you absolutely sure you want me to-"

"Yes, bloody hell! Don't get all sentimental. This is a war. We have occasional uses for each other. Now get on with it."

Lupin hardened his expression, clutching the potion to him as he readied his wand at Severus.

_"Obliviate."_


End file.
